A small contribution to the ongoing debates on “planetary urbanization” with Kurt Iveson. The paper is an extension of the work I’ve done with Kurt developing the notion of the “method of equality”. Our discussion was prompted by the work Neil Brenner and Christian Schmidt have undertaken on the concept.

“Local officials […] have revamped or transformed both the institutions and the processes of investment in order to maximize their autonomy from both the state and the federal governments” (Sbragia, 1996; 10)

It is now 20 years since Alberta Sbragia’s study of American entrepreneurial city government was published. Sbragia’s landmark book, Debt Wish: Entrepreneurial Cities, U.S. Federalism, and Economic Development, gave a detailed account of how city governments, constrained by neoliberal state reforms (Harvey, 1989), managed to create innovative mechanisms that enabled them to continue on as economic development entities. Sbragia’s 1996 account of American Federalism and the role that municipalities came to play in it, emphasized how cities had utilized both public authorities (i.e. legal innovation) and bond markets (i.e. financial innovation) to construct an investor-based model of urban governance in the context of tightening fiscal restrictions.

In the 20 years since the publication of this book, cities across the U.S. have been responsible for a proliferation of new public authorities (Fainstein, 2001) and a massive increase in the size of the municipal bond market (Weber, 2010). The principal components of Sbragia’s analysis therefore remain central to urban governance today. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, the urban governance landscape has been in flux. The rise of austerity politics has created new fiscal challenges for cities (Peck, 2012), the dangers of financial speculation for city governments have been revealed (Davidson and Ward, 2014), and the legal structures that define municipal fiscal failure have been rewritten (Tabb, 2014).

In this session we revisit Debt Wish and consider the book’s continuing relevance for scholars of contemporary urban politics and policy. The session will explore the following issues:

The continuing role of debt in urban governance

Recent legal innovations within U.S. urban governance

Inter-governmental relations and contemporary urban governance

The influence of financial crisis and recession on contemporary urban governance

Reflections and critiques on theories of entrepreneurial urban governance

Very proud of this article on municipal bankruptcy, now out in EPA. Written with Bill Kutz, it examines how local fiscal crisis has been wrapped up with ideological battles played out at the local level.

Harvey’s (1989) outline of entrepreneurial urban governance remains a staple of urban theory. Consensus is that cities – as constrained by neoliberal institutions – must pursue growth above all else, even at the cost of the well-being of some of their citizens (Merrifield, 2014). Urban governance is therefore seen to rely on technocratic or speculative experiments that are designed to make the city a better enabler of market processes (Gibbs, 2013; Karvonen & van Heur, 2014; MacLeod, 2011; Swyngedouw, 2011). Yet we constantly see that urban growth initiatives are not coherent nor bear predicted results. Over time, speculative initiatives can be subject to regime changes and capitalist crisis that render them something other than what was intended. In addition, political actions are now being taken at the municipal level that appear to contravene entrepreneurial dictates. Can such changes make our urban politics something other than entrepreneurial and/or neoliberal?

In recent years a number of significant urban economic and political events have occurred which appear to demand a revision of popular theories of urban governance. They highlight the limits to entrepreneurialism coordinated according to the logics of growth and, paradoxically, the resilience of entrepreneurial practices despite their inability to deliver growth. Entrepreneurial practices appear to be tearing away from their neoliberal justifications, becoming more apparent manifestations of ideological practices. Such events include the raft of municipal bankruptcies that have shaken the financial ordering of cities by ignoring the governmental rules of financial capitalism. They also include events that seem to cast doubt on the strength and scope of neoliberal dictates; where significant increases in city-based minimum wages are now accepted as politically possible and broad-based mobilizations are challenging who has the authority to govern cities. The logics of entrepreneurialism therefore appear less constraining and/or more easily transcended, even in our so-called post-political times.

This session therefore revisits the political economic condition of urban governance. It examines how urban politics can and have diverged from its entrepreneurial neoliberal condition, and what the implications of such divergences can and might be. Potential topics of papers to be included in the session might include:

Theories of urban governance that develop ideas of entrepreneurialism

Studies of urban events and processes that challenge dominant understandings of urban governance

Attempts to understand urban governance in times of (permanent) political and economic crisis

Studies and theories of political confrontation and change in contemporary cities

Attempts to comparatively understand the varied experiences of cities in times of crisis

Authors are invited to submit 250 word abstracts to John Lauermann (jlauermann@clarku.edu) and Mark Davidson (mdavidson@clarku.edu), by October 6. Likewise, please feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss potential paper topics.